Jakub Pachocki
Chief Scientist at OpenAI
OpenAI's chief scientist, who led the development of GPT-4 and previously led its research.
Biography
Jakub Pachocki is a Polish computer scientist and former competitive programmer, best known as OpenAI's chief scientist. Born in Gdańsk in 1991, he was a six-time finalist of the Polish Olympiad in Informatics and won a silver medal at the 2009 International Olympiad in Informatics. At the University of Warsaw he studied computer science, and his team won gold at the 2012 ICPC World Finals; the same year he won Google Code Jam.
He earned a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University under Gary Miller and did postdoctoral work at Harvard and the Simons Institute. He joined OpenAI in 2017, became research director in 2021 and led the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five. In May 2024 he became chief scientist after Ilya Sutskever left. In September 2026 he published the essay An Alien Mind on the rapid advance of AI systems and the challenge of keeping them aligned with human goals, and called for shared safety regulations and international cooperation.
Notable contributions
Led the development of GPT-4
As OpenAI's research director from 2021, led the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five.
Became OpenAI's chief scientist
Took over as chief scientist in May 2024 after Ilya Sutskever's departure.
Won Google Code Jam 2012
Was the 2012 Google Code Jam champion and won gold at the 2012 ICPC World Finals with his university team.
